


delivered, never sent

by tin_girl



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, but they're there, mentions of past bulimia, the andreil is background, this is the most spontaneous thing i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23837245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tin_girl/pseuds/tin_girl
Summary: They graduate, and Allison could buy Renee anything she wanted, but Renee with that cross on her neck doesn’t want much. Renee, who’s killed people, who wants to save children and the elderly and turtles, Renee, who prays through living and not through words, who doesn’t feel the need to kneel for God but kneels to inspect Allison’s knees after a rough game.Now, she’ll never kneel like that in front of Allison ever again.Or, Allison learns not to need Renee so that she can love her instead.
Relationships: Allison Reynolds/Renee Walker (All For The Game), Background Relationship - Relationship, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44





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**Author's Note:**

> I've just reread the series for the fifth time, God help me. Anyway, there's that moment when Neil is Nathaniel and sees that Allison is bruised and he hopes she punched whoever gave her the bruises back or maybe Renee took care of it for her, and this whole fic was inspired by that one sentence, don't judge me.

I don’t know how to write love letters. But I wanted to tell you that my whole being opened for you.

~Frida Kahlo

It takes Allison years to realize that she loves Renee because she’s too busy hating herself.

Surprise, surprise, goldilocks, a nasty voice says in her head when Andrew almost breaks her arm, Renee’s breath warm on her ear even though everything should be cold. Surprise, surprise, little weakling, little plastic Barbie doll, he would tear your arm right out of the socket and you’d just kneel there and watch.

So one week after they beat the Ravens, Allison says, teach me.

Renee looks at her over her cup of coffee, and here’s the truth of it: Renee is kind, Renee is good, but Renee drinks her coffee black, no sugar, no milk. For a moment, Allison remembers Seth tearing packets of sugar open, how it would spill all over the table, how he would gather it and lick it off his palm, how she’d say ew every time and refuse to kiss him, how, later, she’d forget all about it and kiss him anyway.

She hasn’t slept with anyone in months, and maybe that’s why when Renee lands the first punch, Allison smiles.

“You don’t like this,” she says because Renee is watching her, worried, knuckles drawn to her chest.

“It doesn’t matter,” Renee says softly. “You want this.”

“And you’d give me whatever I wanted?” Allison asks, arching an eyebrow, and doesn’t expect the simple ‘yes’ she gets in return.

It will take her forever to think to wonder what it is that she wants because she always knew, before.

*

“I want to see the knives,” She tells Andrew, and feels bold, steals his cigarette and stomps it dead. She’s not good enough to survive him just yet, won’t be for a long, long time, which is why she’s here: not to test herself, but to test herself.

He looks at her and doesn’t kill her.

“No.”

“I _want_ to.”

She’s used to getting what she wants, one way or another. Sometimes things fall right into her lap, and sometimes she fights for them, tooth and nail. This is trickier, this is Renee’s past in Allison’s present, and God knows what it’ll do to their future.

What Allison hates about Andrew the most is how he never thought to take her to Columbia, dismissed her as insignificant right away, and now here she is, begging for more of that same indifference.

“If I show you the knives,” he says in that hollow way of his, “you’ll want to see the scars.”

“I’ve seen them.”

Renee changes in front of them, no problem, white patterns carved into her skin here and there, and she’s so pale that if you blink, you’ll miss it.

“You’ll want to look.”

“I’ve looked,” Allison says stubbornly.

Andrew hands them to her one by one, lets her weigh them in her hands. She slides the tip of her finger along the blades, doesn’t cut herself, almost wants to.

“Why?”

“I’m not a hypocrite,” Andrew says, lighting a new cigarette, and she doesn’t understand, thinks it must have something to do with Neil, but lets him be.

Later, she looks and finds herself wanting to touch. She’ll believe it curiosity for years. 

*

They graduate, and Allison could buy Renee anything she wanted, but Renee with that cross on her neck doesn’t want much. Renee, who’s killed people, who wants to save children and the elderly and turtles, Renee, who prays through living and not through words, who doesn’t feel the need to kneel for God but kneels to inspect Allison’s knees after a rough game.

Now, she’ll never kneel like that in front of Allison ever again.

*

Somehow, Dan knows it first.

She looks at Allison once, when they all manage to get together after months of planning, and doesn’t stop looking. Later, she drags her aside.

“I never thought – Do you think—? I’m happy for you.”

She never explains, and Allison never asks, she’s too busy loving them and laughing and remembering all the good things that have happened.

Later, they spar, and Allison doesn’t let Renee let her win.

“You got better,” Renee tells her with a small smile. “Has someone else—”

“No,” Allison says hurriedly and doesn’t know why. “How’s Jean?”

“Jean?” Renee says, surprised, and tilts her head. “I haven’t talked to him in a while but I think he’s fine. He and Jeremy— oh, but you wouldn’t know about that, would you?”

No, Allison wouldn’t.

*

Once, Allison’s mother calls her, and Allison remembers forcing herself to retch after meals.

“No,” she says before her mother can get a word in, and hangs up.

She calls her mother back later, after an hour of pacing the apartment and slapping walls with her hands.

“I’m still a Fox, and I still date assholes, and you don’t know anything about knives.”

Her mother is quiet, only her breath audible.

“Stop using our travel agent,” she says and Allison sighs, doesn’t throw the phone.

“Right,” she says. “Merry Christmas.”

It’s June but she doubts she’ll hear from her parents before New Year.

*

She starts designing clothes, Renee goes into Peace Corps, and sometimes Allison sleeps with men who look like Seth but she never sleeps with men who pray. Renee sends her a letter, old-fashioned, envelope and a stamp, and it’s a sweet thing, written on the knee, a pencil and three different pens and a coffee stain, too. She talks about missing them, and about sunrises, and about faith.

Allison doesn’t write back, because she knows she’s no good at this quiet love, that she either argues her way into people’s lives or doesn’t, but there’s this at least: she smells the letter and realizes that she wants to argue her way into Renee’s.

*

“I won’t.”

“You _have_ to.”

Andrew stares at her, unimpressed. Behind him, Neil frowns, worried and confused.

“I’ll kill you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Is this some weird fight for my approval?” Andrew says, tilting his head. He saw right through her when he found her on their doorstep, jittery and hot-cheeked. “I don’t care enough to approve or not.”

“You do, too,” she snaps. “But no, that’s not what this is about. I want to— I don’t want to need to be under her protection anymore, not ever.”

Andrew indulges her, and she’ll never forget it. Later, she flies to see Dan, and Dan scowls at the bruises.

“You didn’t win,” she chastises, making Allison tea.

Allison grins, even though smiling hurts.

“He didn’t, either.”

*

When they see each other next, Renee has something soft in her eyes that wasn’t there before, like she’s settled into herself. It makes Allison long for her, even though they’re but three feet apart, unfinished cake on the table between them, Renee’s coffee black and bitter.

When Renee unpacks the sweater, Allison can’t stand to look at her so she stares out the window instead. She doesn’t know why Renee keeps sending her letters, because Allison never replies, only reads them and then sews late into the night instead of designing.

Renee brings the sweater to her cheek and smiles. She doesn’t ask if Allison’s made it herself, because she knows, and she takes Allison’s hands between hers, worn skin. Allison grips her fingers, and nothing starts but nothing ends either.

*

Once, Allison starved herself into a wisp of a girl, and once, Renee cut her way to a ghost of a girl with all her knives. Now that they’re both finally whole, Allison tells her, because even if she loses this, there are things she’ll have left anyway.

Little princess, little miss fortune, little miss beautiful, and she doesn’t have scars, but she has stretch marks all over, remembers how once she was a yoyo bouncing between dead and alive, bouncing between being hers or someone else’s. She’s not a wisp of a thing but she’s not a princess either. She likes to think that she’s her own imperium instead.

She takes herself in her own hands and argues it to Renee until she understands, I fucking love you, alright?

And Renee, beautiful, sweet Renee, who saves children, and the elderly, and all those turtles, Renee kneels in front of Allison one more time and presses her forehead to Allison’s stomach where it’s both flat and hard.

“Andrew called to ask me about it once,” she whispers into the skin above Allison’s waistband.

“Oh? What did you say?”

“I said that I should be so lucky—”

After that, they both are.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 I love comments with my whole being so if you have any thoughts, even if it's just a question mark, let me know!
> 
> I'm on tumblr, too, @yoyointhegarden


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